Improving land use efficiency is an important way to break resource and environmental constraints, and achieve sustainable development. First, the super-efficient SBM model with meta frontier and group frontier is adopted to measure urban land use efficiency. Then, a comprehensive indicator framework is constructed to assess the urban energy transition index. Finally, the impact of land use efficiency on urban energy transition is explored. Urban land use efficiency in China has shown a gradual upward trend over the study period. The technology gap ratio has a positive impact on urban land use efficiency, but there are significant regional differences. The urban energy transition index also shows a gradual upward trend, with regional differences in energy transition in different urbans. The urban land use efficiency has a positive impact on urban energy transition, and several endogeneity and robustness tests confirm that the conclusions are robust. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the impact of urban land use efficiency on energy transition is more significant in non-resource cities, cities with high cleanliness potential and cities with high levels of economic development. The analysis of the regulating mechanism shows that different land use policies have heterogeneous effects on the energy transition. •The super-efficient SBM model with meta frontier and group frontier is used to measure urban land use efficiency.•A comprehensive indicator framework is constructed to assess the urban energy transition index.•The impact of land use efficiency on urban energy transition is explored.